Primary Menu

Cubicle Hell? Not At Sybase iAnywhere

Most people think of the corporate environment as cubicle hell, and so when I accepted the job offer from Sybase, I expected much of the same. It was quite unexpected when we were told and then shown that most full time employees at the iAnywhere subsidiary in Waterloo have private offices. There are few cubicles there (except for the co-ops…) and lots of open space. There’s also quite a bit of space for further expansion. There’s only about 250-300 people that actually work at the Sybase iAnywhere location in Waterloo (an of those, 30-40 are co-op students) but if all the space were used and fully decked out with cubicles, I’m sure that number could be doubled. I rather like it the way it is though.

The interior of the building is something of a maze though. On the initial orientation walk-through, I was confused as hell. The building (as far as I can tell) seems quite symmetrical. As a result, many areas appear to be the same. Additionally, due to the large number of private offices, there are many walls and therefore hallways. You can’t really see where you want to go. Instead you have to follow the ‘spokes’ out from the center of the building where the stairs and elevators are located. (I haven’t used the elevators yet; on a three floor building, it almost seems too lazy.)

The place even feels like one of those ‘hip and cool’ tech companies. There’s your mandatory free soft drinks, coffee, tea and various other hot drinks. There’s a foosball table down in the cafeteria (I’m glad I picked up some skillz during my time at Bell Mobility) and a rec room with a big screen TV and some random playthings. Because Sybase hires so many co-ops each semester, they pay a lot of attention to making their time there as enjoyable as possible through a co-op committee that organizes events for the group.